


Just a Dream

by Bitter_Baristas



Series: Spideypool Oneshots [12]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Tumblr Post, Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depressing, Hurt/Comfort, I Blame Tumblr, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Past Character Death, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Sleepy Cuddles, Tumblr, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-03 18:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14575155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitter_Baristas/pseuds/Bitter_Baristas
Summary: May opens her mouth to speak her parting words, some kind of comfort or wisdom, but is only able to take her last breath. Peter’s keening wails resonate through the hallway. Grief consumes him and he flings himself over her body, still warm, still feeling alive. He wraps her in a desperate embrace, fingers tangling in her dark hair and curling into her skull.Wade tries to pry him away, is telling him something he can’t hear over his crying.





	Just a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: "Has Peter experienced having a nightmare about Aunt May, Wade, and the people close to Peter dying?"

Peter is well acquainted with the concept of mortality. His parents die before he knows them, leaving him with only cobweb and dust covered memories. Photographs and stories his aunt and uncle tell him. He is young when his parents’ plane crashes, and while the wounds cut deep they heal quickly enough.

May and Ben love him like he’s their own--the child they weren’t blessed to conceive themselves. How they come to have Peter is tragic--the result of two untimely deaths--but Peter is loved in their home and he grows into a bright young man.

He learns to speak Italian from May. Ben is a self taught guitarist and shares what he knows with Peter. The boy is a sponge and absorbs almost any knowledge given to him. He has an affinity for math and science and everything technical. When he’s young and clingy Ben sits him down, teaches him to sew.

“They teach this in the military, Petey. It’s important to know.”

Peter hates every lesson. He will only appreciate them years later, when he stitches his Spider-Man suit together.

When Peter is a child, Ben and May seem ageless. They’re his aunt and uncle, the unwavering providers and caretakers of his youth. They will live forever.

Ben dies.

He’s in his early fifties when a home invasion goes wrong. He’s too young to die and Peter is too young to lose another parent.

May falls apart and has to pick up her own broken pieces, haphazardly puts herself together because her nephew needs her now more than ever.

Time passes. Wounds heal; eventually. Peter and May are as close as close can be. There are no secrets between them. Until Peter gets his powers.

May finds out about his vigilante heroism. There’s about an hour of one sided screaming that Peter takes silently, pale and frightened because he’s never seen May so livid. When she’s done yelling in a mix of Italian and English, Peter tentatively tells her everything. He lifts their couch above his head with ease. May, who had been on a tirade only minutes before, is rendered speechless.

Peter anxiously awaits a reaction, and he gets one. May starts bawling. She crumples to the floor and Peter is beside her in an instant, holding her together in his arms as she falls apart.

“I can’t lose you, too. I can’t lose you, Peter.”

“You won’t, May. I promise.” How easily he promises something he can’t control.

The next time May sees Tony, the man is ripped to metaphorical tatters. Rightly so, Tony says, brushing himself off and trying not to cower under the weight of May’s glare.

“I’ll protect him. I will always protect Peter.” Tony says, so seriously Peter is surprised. He knows Tony cares about him, but Mr. Stark is a man who keeps his armor up even when he’s not wearing his suit. To hear him speak so earnestly is shocking.

Years later, when he and Wade share their lives together, Wade also makes it his personal mission to protect Peter.

Everyone in his life wants to keep him safe. It’s stifling and sweet. He’s not made of glass, he can and has taken a beating. The Avengers look at him and still see the child who blocked Bucky’s metal fist and took Steve’s shield. They look at him and forget he’s one of the most powerful team members.

It’s so ironic. He can take much more damage than Natasha or Clint. His healing factor has saved him from gunshots and bone crushing impacts. When May discovered his nightly secret she worried about him dying. It’s so ironic, because May is dying before his eyes.

She lays in a hospital bed, a husk of her former self. Wade and Tony linger near her bedside, not daring to get close because Peter is halfway onto her mattress, clinging to her hand and sobbing.

“Don’t go. Don’t go,” he pleads. “Don’t leave me.”

May opens her mouth to speak her parting words, some kind of comfort or wisdom, but is only able to take her last breath. Peter’s keening wails resonate through the hallway. Grief consumes him and he flings himself over her body, still warm, still feeling alive. He wraps her in a desperate embrace, fingers tangling in her dark hair and curling into her skull.

Wade tries to pry him away, is telling him something he can’t hear over his crying.

“Peter? Wake up!”

Peter’s eyes fly open and he slams into Wade’s body as he jumps out of bed. The dream roars in his mind and their dark bedroom seems like a foreign country. His spider instincts push him into a corner on the ceiling, his heart pounding in his ears as he hyperventilates. Wade stares at him, wide eyed, and then slowly reaches for the lamp on their nightstand. His mouth is moving, but the words don’t reach Peter.

Light floods the room.

“Breathe, Peter. I need you to breathe.” Wade says gently, moving towards him.

Peter sucks in air and drops to the floor. Wade lets him fall to his hands and knees, steps back to let him get his bearings. When his breathing evens, Wade scoops Peter into his arms and sits on the bed, keeping the man in his lap.

“May died,” Peter gasps out, leaning his head on Wade’s shoulder. “She died.” He goes limp, relief and exhaustion crashing over him.

Wade tells him what he knows but needs to hear.

“It was just a dream,” Wade sweeps his hair back and kisses his forehead. "May's fine, baby boy." 

Peter nods, but it feels like a string is attached to him, tweaking to force the action. Wade is technically right--May _is_ fine, but she won't always be. A familiar dread unfurls in his stomach, a sickening feeling that weighed him down many nightmare filled nights as a child. The sinister foreboding of the inevitable. May is fine now. One day--a day that is hopefully far off into the future--she'll die. 

May, the woman who raised him. Dressed him for school, helped him with his homework, read him bedtime stories. The woman who ensured his needs were always met even when she lost her husband and was left a single parent of a child that wasn't hers. May, the woman who was like his mother and loved him with the same fierceness. 

She will die. It's a fact, set in stone. Perhaps golden sunlight will envelope her, ease her of all her earthly burdens. Perhaps she will be reunited with Ben. Peter doesn't know--he _can't_ know.

He's experiencing what May did the night she learned he was Spider-Man. The crippling prospect of loss that always accompanies love. He and May have both lost too many people, and to function Peter had viciously suppressed the notion that May would die before him. Now he's acutely aware of the possibility. There's no good order for them to go. Either May dies first and Peter is left behind in utter devastation, or he dies first and May is broken by the loss of her closest family member.  

"Breathe. Peter, breathe." Wade's steady voice cuts through his spiraling thoughts and Peter realizes he's crying. Tremors wrack his body and Wade moves back. A strangled whine leaves him and Peter feels momentarily abandoned. But Wade stays on the bed, in arms reach. "You're having a panic attack, Petey. I need you to focus on breathing. In," Wade takes a deep, theatrical breath. "And out. Do it with me. In, and out." 

Peter struggles through the breathes. His body wants to curl into itself and he can only manage short gasps, but Wade doesn't relent until he's breathing normally. "Okay, baby boy. Lie back and relax, you're probably gonna feel light headed. I'm going to get you a glass of water. I will be right back." Wade is gone and back in what seems like a blink, and he waits patiently for Peter to take the water. "Slowly," he says, keeping a hand on the bottom of the glass to control Peter's pace. 

When he's come down from the panic attack, Peter holds out his arms in the sign Wade recognizes to mean 'hold me. Make it better.' He does just that and rearranges them so Peter is seated between his loosely crossed legs, his spine pressed into the grounding heat of Wade's front. Wade's hands grip Peter's, his chin resting on the top of his head. 

Peter speaks first. "I... It's not something I think about, y'know? That she's going to die. It's not something that crosses my mind." 

There's a delay while Wade considers what to say. "It's scary, death. But it's just as natural as birth." 

The tears start again, and Peter feels ashamed. Like he's a child again, orphaned and crying into May's skirt as she tries in vain to comfort him. "I don't want her to die." He admits, voice small. Wade squeezes him, his thumb rubbing along the length of Peter's hand.

They sit in silence, the rhythm of Wade's thumb stroking his hand soothing Peter enough that his eyelids droop. Wade leans back and they shift into more comfortable positions, Wade's arm curled protectively around him. Peter slips into a blessedly dreamless slumber.

 


End file.
